Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Mobile technologies have increased the speed of doing business. However, there is also a risk associated with the usage of them. That risk is that you are putting in much more hours in your work. The distinction between work and play is blurring.

How many of you read your messages/email when you are sitting on the couch at night? Are you immediately responding to requests, also in the weekend? Even while traveling we are constantly telephoning, reading or texting.

In business it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish yourself from the competition. But if you are vigorously playing the game, you don’t see everything that is happening on the playing field. You have to detach yourself to see properly. So, you have to make time for this on a regular basis. Blue Oceans don’t pop up by itself. You have to take some distance (in time and space) to see what is going on and to ‘see’ where you can be a real differentiator.

This timeslot will not appear by itself, you have to plan for it. So, start by having one hour ‘freedom time’ in your agenda, every week. This isn’t much, as you consider that the most innovative companies (Google, 3M) have reserved 20% of their time for this every week!

Mobile technologies have increased the speed of doing business. However, there is also a risk associated with the usage of them. That risk is that you are putting in much more hours in your work. The distinction between work and play is blurring.

How many of you read your messages/email when you are sitting on the couch at night? Are you immediately responding to requests, also in the weekend? Even while traveling we are constantly telephoning, reading or texting.

In business it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish yourself from the competition. But if you are vigorously playing the game, you don’t see everything that is happening on the playing field. You have to detach yourself to see properly. So, you have to make time for this on a regular basis. Blue Oceans don’t pop up by itself. You have to take some distance (in time and space) to see what is going on and to ‘see’ where you can be a real differentiator.

This timeslot will not appear by itself, you have to plan for it. So, start by having one hour ‘freedom time’ in your agenda, every week. This isn’t much, as you consider that the most innovative companies (Google, 3M) have reserved 20% of their time for this every week!